


Sedative

by februarystars26



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Dreams, F/M, Force Bond, It’ll get smut eventually, bed sharing, idk this is for Taylor, other stuff, sleeping
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-09-24
Updated: 2020-03-25
Packaged: 2020-10-27 07:00:07
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 13,864
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20756240
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/februarystars26/pseuds/februarystars26
Summary: Ben and Rey find a way that they can both get some rest.





	1. Chapter 1

Rey had never allowed herself healthy sleep habits. On Jakku, you couldn’t. Sleep left you vulnerable, and you couldn’t be vulnerable and expect to survive. 

Then she went to Luke, and there wasn’t much time for sleeping. 

And now… well now she was in the middle of a war, which wasn’t an ideal sleeping situation on its own, but couple that with the force’s insistence that her attention be focused halfway across the galaxy and yeah, there wasn’t much sleep in her schedule. 

It wasn’t that bad at first, the bond or the sleep. Even though they were fighting a war, she at least felt safe enough to sleep for those few hours when she wasn’t on patrol. 

Her…complicated... force relationship hadn’t been causing that much of a problem either. In fact, the bond didn’t open for a month after Crait and she could go about her daily life undisturbed. And then it was like someone flipped a switch one day… and he was everywhere. She almost immediately went to Leia, coming clean finally about the bond, and looking for help. 

“If he can contact me through the bond…” Rey told her, “he could find out where we are. He could attack us.” 

Leia had frowned. “Then you have to block it,” she said. “You have to build a wall around your thoughts.” 

Rey had done it, and it had succeeded, mostly. 

There were, as far as she could tell, only two major defects to this plan. The first was that just like any other wall, things could slam up against it. So while he couldn’t get through, his emotions, his pain, his moods, could slam up against her mental wall. Those were, naturally, the days she got headaches. The second and much more prevailing issue was that she couldn’t sleep while she blocked the bond. It took at least a fraction of her energy and a little of her focus to constantly block it. 

Her friends noticed, of course. She couldn’t count the number of times that Finn had asked, “Did you even hear a word I just said?” Or how many times she had walked straight into Rose in the hallway and Rose had looked at her face closely and asked, “Are you ill? You look terrible.” 

At that moment a large dose of his anger had hit her walls and she had snapped at Rose, “No,” and walked away. 

It had gone on like this for almost two weeks. 

She barely slept at all now, relying on meditation and sheer force of will to keep her going. This, as one might expect, wasn’t going very well. She was so tired, on the verge of unconsciousness constantly. Finn was always able to land several hits when they trained. Her arms were stained black and blue. She couldn’t remember the standard repair sequencing on an x-wing and almost caused a fire in the hangar. The only thing she could do was block the bond. She became convinced that even if she couldn’t do anything else, at least she could do that. 

She couldn’t let him find them. It was her responsibility. If that meant sleeping for only as long as she could before she felt the tell tale signs of the bond reconnecting, then that’s what it would take. 

Just once, her mind began playing tricks on her, convincing herself that it would be fine… if she just rested her eyes for a moment… maybe just longer than a moment… surely he wouldn’t always appear. It would be fine, to get some rest. 

She was asleep for an hour, and when she woke up he was sitting across the room from her. She was so mad she threw her pillow at his apparition and snapped her mental walls back into place. 

She was left staring at an empty wall, contemplating the only thought of his that had escaped over to her side of the bond. That he was so tired, too. 

She doubled down on her efforts to keep him out, then. But the blasted force, well, the force was insistent. The harder Rey worked to keep him out, the harder the force worked to let him in. And vice versa. She would sit in meetings with Leia and she would see the floor turn to black. She had to do double takes down the hallway when she thought she saw stormtroopers coming her way. But the worst, the absolute worst, was when she found a black cloak on her floor that she knew didn’t belong to her or any of her friends. She gathered it in her arms, and she knew that she should have destroyed it, should have burned it and cursed it, but instead she took it to Chewbacca to get confirmation of what she already knew. 

Chewie held it for a second, gave her a particularly ferocious growl, and gave it back to her. She took the cloak back to her room and put it on her bed as she paced. Destroying it would be a waste and after Jakku, she just couldn’t bear to waste things. She obviously could never wear it. Too long, too dark, too close to him. It was such a fine material, she couldn’t make other clothes out of it. Her friends would be suspicious. 

So she sighed and folded it. She allowed herself one moment to hold it in her arms. One moment to press it to her face and inhale. She had never really taken note of what Ben smelled like, but the second she took a breath, she knew the scent was distinctly his. And that realization is what caused her to quickly shove the cloak into a drawer and slam it shut. 

It was only a day or two later that she was really starting to get dizzy. She was leaning herself up against a hallway wall just to stay upright. Poe came down the hall and laughed at her. 

“Shut up,” she murmured, but it was feeble. Poe just shook his head.  
“C’mon, Rey,” he said. “I think it’s time we really talked.” 

\--

Finn, Rose, and Leia had already gathered in the infirmary by the time Poe nearly dragged Rey in. They propped Rey up in one bed and sat on the other bed across from her. 

Rose got up and started programming something onto a med droid while Poe started speaking.  
“Rey, you need to sleep.” Rey tried to protest but found she didn’t have the energy. Poe just laughed. “See?”

“I’m fine,” she used her remaining strength to murmur.  
“Rey,” his voice was pleading, “you need to sleep. You’re no use to anyone like this.” He looked over to Rose, who stepped away from the droid and nodded. “We’re going to give you a sedative-”

“WHAT?!” Rey was incredulous. She wasn’t deranged, she was just not sleeping. “Leia you can’t really-”  
Leia raised her hand, bidding her to stop. “I’m the one that decided.” The med droid whirred over and pricked Rey’s arm.  
“Ow!” Rey exclaimed.  
“Forty seconds,” the med droid beeped then whirred away.  
“If we ordered you to sleep, you would have ignored us and kept on staying awake,” Leia said calmly, and Rey knew she was right. Her friends offered quick words of love and told her this was for her own good. When they had left the room and it was just her and Leia, Rey reached out and grabbed her hand. Her time was running out and she was starting to panic.  
“You know if I’m asleep what can happen. He can-”  
“If he makes any move to invade your mind, I’ll know, I’ll temporarily monitor you while you sleep” she said with a shake of her head. “I swear sometimes you all forget that I have power too.” Rey really did feel foolish then. Leia was the one person she could count on to think of every possibility before making a decision.  
“I’m sorry,” Rey said quietly.  
“Don’t be sorry,” Leia said. “Just get some rest.” Then she was pulled under into thick black sleep.

The sedative was so powerful that she slept like she was in a coma. She woke up what a glance at the chrono told her was 12 hours later.  
Kriff, she thought, finally conceding to herself that she did need to sleep. She felt, well, she certainly felt better than she did before, but her body remembered how much better it felt to sleep than not now, and she knew it wouldn’t let her stay up night after night anymore. She needed to figure out a plan for her mental walls and she needed to figure one out quick. She swung her feet over the side of the bed to stand up. She had some renewed energy, and she’d start with the Jedi texts and see if there was anything there-  
“Mmph.”  
Rey froze. What had her foot just stepped on and why did it make a noise. She very slowly looked down at the floor where a giant hunk of human was sprawled on his back asleep.  
She was so happy about sleeping, she didn’t put her walls back up the instant she woke and now he was here. On her floor. Her panic spiked aggressively and then spiked more aggressively because she knew with the bond open that he could feel it, and just on cue, it seemed that he did, and started to flutter his eyelids.  
His eyes rocked to hers and widened immediately.  
Rey tried to immediately throw her walls up and block him out when he suddenly reached up and grabbed her around the ankle.  
“Rey wait, please,” he pleaded. When he was satisfied that she wouldn’t immediately kick him back to his corner of the galaxy, he propped himself into a sitting position and ran a hand through his hair. He was looking around at his surroundings like he didn’t know exactly where he was, which Rey found odd. How could he not know where he fell asleep?  
“You’re on a conference table here,” he said quietly. “You’re not on a conference table there are you?” Rey blinked at him, still cautious of this conversation. The longer the bond was open the more dangerous he was.  
“You’re on the floor here,” she finally said.  
“I’m on the floor here, too,” he replied.  
“What? Why?” Rey was puzzled.  
“I haven’t been sleeping,” he said resignedly. “And I haven’t been.. pleasant to be around.” He shrugged his shoulders. “Hux got sick of it, stunned me in the middle of a meeting to finally get me to sleep. I guess he left me on the floor.”  
Rey winced. She needed to remember to give Poe and Finn and everyone a big hug and a thank you for putting her to sleep with medicine, in a bed, with at least a little warning. She was even starting to feel a little bad for him, sleeping for hours on end on the floor couldn’t be remotely comfortable, when he spoke again.  
“I can’t keep doing this, Rey,” he said.  
“The bond?” She asked.  
“No, the staying awake. I’ve been up for days on end,” he said, shaking his head.  
“Then destroy the bond.”  
“I don’t know how,” he said, slightly aggravated. “If I knew, it would be done by now. But I need to sleep, Rey. I’m exhausted, and it’s putting me in danger.”  
“Like Hux shooting you? Why didn’t he just kill you?” she asked, then immediately wanted to put her foot in her mouth, but he just shrugged.  
“If he’s going to kill me now he’s going to save it for something more special than shooting me defenseless in my sleep.” Then he turned to her, “Have you been sleeping?” he asked this more quietly.  
“No,” she confessed. “I’ve been blocking the bond.”  
He nodded. “I have, too.”  
“It’s not safe, to leave it open,” Rey continued. “You’d hurt me, steal our location from my mind.”  
“And you wouldn’t-” he started, then shook his head. “It doesn’t matter. We need to sleep.”  
His brow furrowed, the way Rey knew it did when he was working something out.  
“Well, if we’re both asleep,” he said, “then we can’t hurt each other.”  
“What?” Rey replied.  
He stood up and met her eyes. “If we sleep at the same time. It’s the closest we’ll get to a truce. We can both get some rest.”  
Rey blinked, “I’m sorry?”  
“If we sleep at the same times-”  
“No, you dolt, I understand that. I just don’t understand how you think this would work let alone why.”  
“We’d lower our walls right before we went to sleep. If neither of us is awake, we can’t do any harm to each other.”  
Rey put her head in her hands. “And just why do you think I’ll believe that you won’t just wait until I’m asleep and steal information?”  
He shrugged, “I wouldn’t even be proposing this if I wasn’t this desperate. Other than that, you’re just going to have to trust me.”  
Rey huffed.  
He leaned down to look her firmly in the eyes, “I’ve never lied to you. I won’t now. I promise I won’t do anything in your head or otherwise. It will be a true truce.”  
Rey tried to steady her thoughts. “Fine,” she said hesitantly. “If it means I can get a few hours of peace a night, I accept.”  
“Good,” he said. “Now you.”  
Rey shot him a look, “Me?!”  
“Promise it’s a true truce.”  
“You think I would do something to you?”  
He pursed his lips, “You’d kill me in my sleep, in one fell swoop.”  
Rey took a long inhale, “Fine, I swear by the force that I will not try to maim or kill you in your sleep.”  
He nodded, satisfied. “Good. Then, I’ll see you tonight.”  
“What?” Rey shot out.  
“Tonight,” he replied. Rey was still looking at him incredulously. “We’ll have to tell each other when we’re going to sleep, so we know it’s ok to lower the walls.” Then he disappeared from her view, leaving Rey sitting on her bed in the med bay wondering what in the force just happened.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh. Well, I'm not sure how it's been a month. Yikes. Sorry!! Let's just ignore that and assume there will be more frequent updates. But here's chapter 2, I hope you enjoy!

Finn walked her to her room that night after dinner. 

“OK, so what are we going to do tonight, Rey?” he chided. 

Rey rolled her eyes in response. “Sleep.” 

Finn nodded, “Good.” He wrapped her in a hug, then pulled back and gave her a once over. “You already look more like yourself,” he said. 

For some reason that made Rey’s stomach lurch, but she said goodnight to Finn and closed the door to her room. Her own room, the shock of which still hadn’t worn off. Her own space, with her own things seemed completely silly to Rey, who was happy to sleep in the pilot’s seat on the falcon. But there had been enough space, and Leia had insisted. 

Rey had her own room at almost every base they had stopped at, but this was excessive. Her room on this base was enormous, her bed more like two beds pushed together. By far, this was the biggest base the Resistance had inhabited since Crait. They’d been bumping around the galaxy since that battle on the mineral planet, gathering recruits and trying to find somewhere to settle for a few weeks, at a time months, if they were lucky. 

This current base seemed different, though. It had housed them for a few months now, and as long as they remained safe and hidden, Leia seemed reluctant to leave. She seemed to like this planet, its temperate climate and its green spaces. 

Leia hadn’t said much of anything to her after she’d woken up from her forced nap, just that she wanted to make sure she slept that night. So now Rey was sitting in her much too big room by herself wondering if she could really do what she needed to do to ensure that she would actually be able to get some rest that night. She could disobey Leia, betray her own health, but keep the Resistance safe, or she could trust him, open the bond, and maybe everything would be fine. But it might put everything at risk. Her friends. Her own life. Leia’s. 

She took a deep breath. Open the bond, said the voice in her head. Just to see what he does. 

She lowered her walls as slowly as she could, but he still burst through all at once. 

He was across the room. Sitting upright on what was her desk, but was probably his bed. His knees were drawn up, his arms hugging them, and his head was down. 

Until he felt her, of course, then his head snapped right up to her. 

“You opened it,” he said frankly. 

“Yes.” And he looked so pleased that Rey’s chest felt tight. 

He nodded, “Ok. Well,” he did a scan of his surroundings, “goodnight then.” He moved to lay down. 

“I have no intention of sleeping,” Rey spat at him. It was a harsh tone, and it wasn’t even entirely true, but she sometimes felt these surges of anger towards him. How could he think it was this simple? To not speak for months and then to just go to sleep in the same room? 

His face fell for a moment, and then he replaced it with the same stoic look he always wore. “Well, I don’t care what you do then, but as long as the bond is open, you agreed to a truce, so I’m going to get some sleep.” And then he laid down on his back and closed his eyes, leaving Rey to sit there staring at him in the low light of her room. 

A blanket had appeared on top of him at some point, even though he was still on her desk. She wished she knew more about the bond. How to tame it, how to use it to her advantage, how he could lay down so comfortably in his world when in hers his elbow was in her box of spare droid parts. It didn’t make sense. Then again, neither did their relationship, so she really shouldn’t be surprised. 

Across the room he inhaled deeply and rolled onto his side. His face was soft and relaxed, his lips slightly parted. He was asleep. He just went to sleep. Right across the room from her. He had said he’d been awake for days before today, but, still. Rey leaned forward where she was sitting just to see if he was really asleep or if this was all part of some scheme to get her to drop her guard. But from what she could tell, he really was just sleeping. 

Rey had never really thought about him asleep. That he would look like this. So like everyone else. The things he’d done, it was hard to imagine that someone like B-

There was that, too. She wasn’t really sure what to call him anymore. Was that boy that just wished her goodnight the same one that tried to kill everyone she loved on Crait? And if it was, should she be sitting here examining his face? And why exactly was she staring at his face so much? Maybe she was just trying to see if this was really him. If this was really Ben. She wanted it to be. She wanted Kylo Ren to just be his crude disguise. She wanted… well she wasn’t sure what she wanted. But the longer she sat there, the more tired she felt. And he wasn’t moving. So she laid down, and kept watching him for any signs of danger, until she finally drifted to sleep. 

\--

He wasn’t there when she woke up, his end of the bond shut. Rey assumed, based on the fact that no alarms had sounded and the base wasn’t in absolute chaos, that he had actually held up his end of the bargain. 

She felt better than she had in a long time. She got up to dress and caught a glimpse of herself in her small mirror that she seldom used. Her color wasn’t back all the way, but it was improving, and after two full sleeps under her belt, the bags under her eyes didn’t seem so pronounced. She was starting to feel like herself again. 

But could she really just… carry on like this? Just going about her day and then pretending she wasn’t sleeping in the same room as him at night? Would it start to affect her? 

\--

Over the next few weeks she decided it wasn’t necessarily...easy to have this arrangement with him. But it wasn’t hard either. 

They seldom spoke anymore. The first few nights there were quick conversations, synchronizing chronos, discussing timing. But since then there had been mostly a quick acknowledgement of the other’s presence and then a quick turn away into their pillows to sleep. 

Sometimes he was gone, when she woke up in the morning, and sometimes he was still there, still sleeping in his bed. There was that, too. His bed appeared with him now, in the room with Rey, which secretly made her happy. They still didn’t understand the limits of the bond. Every night he slept on her desk, she fully expected him to roll over and poke his eye on a spare part. 

Sometimes he was already asleep when she entered her room at night. 

“I fall asleep waiting for you,” he shrugged and explained quickly when she asked about it. Rey refused to believe the swoop her stomach did when he told her that was because he’s been falling asleep thinking of her. There was bad food in the cafeteria that night. That was it. 

It was always those nights, when he was already asleep when she got there that she studied him. He liked to sleep on his side, black hair fanned out on the pillow and across his forehead. His sleep clothes were black (of course they were) but they looked like a much softer material than his everyday attire. His long legs just sort of fell anywhere there was room for them. His- 

Ok. She looked at him a lot. And she felt like she knew him more and more. She had started to get better at reading the bond as well. She could tell when he appeared and was tense or when he was exhausted. She didn’t know how, she just could. 

Tonight, as she opened the bond while walking back to her room for the night, she knew he was already asleep, and had already let his side of the bond open. The door to her room slid open and she… didn’t see him. 

His bed wasn’t in its usual place across the room. Her desk was empty… and then she heard his soft breathing. 

He was asleep in her bed. 

Rey blinked. And then stared at him. And then blinked again. Just to confirm that she was really seeing him in her bed, under her blankets, sleeping soundly. Like it was his. 

He wouldn’t really… no, she thought. No, he certainly wouldn’t just fall asleep in her bed, would he? She was starting to… well… they trusted each other at least as much as their nightly arrangement required, but they weren’t close enough to cuddle up in each other’s beds. 

She tried to decide what to do. She felt impossibly awkward and if she felt this way now… imagine what it would be like when she woke him up. 

She approached him cautiously, and then she nudged him gently. Once, twice, three times. 

“Hey,” she whispered, trying not to scare him, trying not to summon some lost memory of look rousing him in the middle of the night poised to kill. 

He inhaled sharply and then opened his eyes. “What? Rey?” he sat up. “What’s wrong?” 

“You, uh…” she stammered. “You’re in my bed?”

He looked around himself, then looked at her, putting his hands up. “I fell asleep in mine, I swear it.”

“I believe you,” she said, “I just-” He moved to stand up. 

“Right, no, I’m sorry,” he stood up. By the time Rey turned around to him his bed had appeared in its usual spot, and he was falling into it. “I’m sorry again,” he said. “I really don’t know how-”

“It’s fine,” Rey said. She didn’t want to talk about this any more than she had to. It was awkward enough. “Goodnight.” 

“Goodnight,” he whispered.

She quickly crawled into her own bed, now sans dark lord, and, oh… 

She had never really thought about what he smelled like before, but as soon as she put her head down on her pillow she knew that was it. He smelled like a wood fire, like he was burning. He smelled warm, and her sheets were still warm from his body where she was laying on them now. 

It all felt too intimate. The smell of his skin, the feel of his body temperature. Too much, too intimate, how much Rey liked it, how deeply she inhaled in it.

How she thought she wouldn’t be able to fall asleep, but how quickly she did, surrounded by him, and only him.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bad dreams & alcohol & the force saying 'snuggle, you idiots.'

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oof, she's a long one, but hey I didn't disappear for a month before updating again. Hope ya enjoy.

There hadn’t been anything odd about their arrangement (other than the arrangement itself) for a while now, so it was only Rey’s luck that as soon as she started to relax, the force started to play tricks once again. 

It started with her not knowing where she was. She only knew that it was dark and there was so much wind that it could have knocked her off her feet. 

She turned around, trying to decide how she got here, trying to figure out what she was here to learn, when she saw him. 

He was standing a distance away from her, his hood up, his shoulders tense. 

“Ben,” she called out to him. He didn’t move. It seemed like he couldn’t even hear her. “Ben,” she tried again. She took a step toward him.

And that’s when he turned around. His face was strained. His brown eyes had changed to yellow. And his anger was polluting the air. 

She moved… and she woke up. 

She screamed when she did, and sat bolt upright in her bed. 

“What? What’s wrong?” she immediately heard from the other side of the room. He stood up and walked from his bed to hers. 

She couldn’t help it, she flinched back and away from him. He looked puzzled by her reaction to him, but Rey was still distracted by trying to calm herself down. 

“What?” he asked again. 

“Nothing,” she said. “Just a bad dream. Go back to sleep.” 

He stood there for a moment. “What was it?” he asked quietly. 

“Nothing,” she said again, starting to lose her patience. 

“Show me,” he said, continuing to press her. 

“No.” 

He narrowed his eyes, “You don’t trust me with a dream?” She could feel him getting more frustrated. 

“Why should I?” it came out harsher than she intended. 

“After everything…” he said shaking his head. He started to walk back to his bed. 

“After nothing,” she corrected him. 

He whirled around. “We sleep in the same room,” he spat. “We sleep 10 feet apart. And you can’t tell me about a dream? That’s ridiculous. I just wanted-” Rey pushed the image of him from her dream at him before he could finish. She showed him her vision, his eyes staring back at her. 

He straightened, “Go to bed.” 

She laughed, “That’s all you have to say? After all of that, I thought you wanted to know what was troubling me. Now you know, ” She took a breath, “It was you.” 

He looked back at her once, and his eyes weren’t yellow, they didn’t look evil, he just looked hurt… and then he snapped the bond shut. 

Closed, gone, left in a room that felt cold and empty without him here. 

For the first time in months, she didn’t sleep at all. 

\--

She couldn’t get it out of her head the next day either. She could only think about what would happen that night. If he’d come, what he’d say. 

Finn called her distracted so many times that day that eventually she just went into her room to pace and wait for him to, hopefully, show up.

She was mad at herself for not simply showing him her dream. He was right, even if it hurt to admit it. What was he going to do with it? He wasn’t about to turn a vision of himself against her. And he was even more right, because she did sleep just feet from him, which, whether she liked it or not meant that she did trust him, on some level. 

And the thought of him being gone, of not being able to sleep or speak to him again, made her chest hurt.

So when he appeared that night, she was, at that point, so flustered by all of this that she didn’t care if it seemed weak, she apologized immediately. 

“I’m sorry,” she said quickly. “I should’ve just showed you… or told you.” She took a breath. “You were just curious, or trying to help me, I think, and I wouldn’t let you.” She took a step away from him, the magnanimity of what she just said only registering once they were out of her mouth. 

“It’s alright,” he replied, calmly. “And I’m sorry, too. I shouldn’t have pushed you.” 

She breathed a sigh of relief. “It’s ok.” 

“And I’m sorry because I wasn’t entirely fair,” he said, giving her serious pause. “I...I have visions, too,” he said quietly. “I didn’t say anything about them.”

“Nightmares?” she asked. 

He shook his head. “Not in the way you have them,” he said, referring to her all encompassing terror, her fear she wouldn’t get out of it. 

She understood. “What about?” she asked softly. 

“Sometimes the same thing you dreamed about,” he said, solemnly, staring at the floor from where he stood. “Sometimes about that, but the opposite.” 

Oh. Oh. 

That… was a lot to think about. She swallowed, and tried not to let her fear bleed out into the bond. 

He sensed her discomfort anyway, “They could both mean nothing.” 

“Right,” she murmured, trying to quell the concern and the questions rising in her chest.

“Or they could mean everything.”

“You’re not helping.”

“You know,” he started cautiously, “a new rule to the truce? Maybe? We don’t have to trust each other with everything, but we can trust each other with some things.” 

“Like what?” she asked. 

He pursed his lips, “Just to cover our bases, let’s start with potentially highly prophetic visions from the force.” 

She agreed to that. Whatever these visions meant, or didn’t mean, it wouldn’t do her any good to drive him away, not anymore. Of that she was sure. 

\--

No nightmares had come for her tonight. Thank stars, she thought as she rolled over in her bed to face Ben. 

...to...to face? What? 

She didn’t even have the presence of mind to try to be quiet in getting up. She scrambled back and (of course) woke him up. 

She was propped up on the edge of his bed looking at him when he finally woke up and saw her. His mouth sort of dropped open at the sight of her, draped casually in his bed, and she silently prayed to the stars that he didn’t think this looked how it looked.

“Uh,” he said. 

“I have no clue,” she replied. And then she moved to stand up and get out of bed. He sat up, and she tucked her hair behind her ears, grateful for the dark lighting that she could tell was hiding a blush. 

“Sorry,” she said again when he said nothing. 

“Ok,” he said, sounding flustered. 

“Yeah,” she said softly and then got into her bed, as far away as possible from his bed as she could get without toppling onto the floor. She pulled the blanket up to her chin, a thousand questions going through her mind. 

How long was she in his bed? How soon did the force move her there? Did he notice her? Did she roll into him at any point? And of course, there was the above all question, why? 

It was over, though. That’s what was important now, she told herself as she tried to calm down. It was over and they were even for him appearing in her bed uninvited a few nights ago. 

She thought it would be the first and last time. She thought it wouldn’t happen again. But nothing was that simple, at least not for them. Nothing was a fluke, and the next few nights were spent waking up at ungodly times, muttering apologies, and getting out of the other’s bed. It almost became commonplace, how strange their lives were, and how strange this all was.  
\--  
He was so upset that it was rolling off of him in waves. She could feel it. It was suffocating her. She looked over at his bed, trying to figure out what was going on. 

Even in the dim light she could see how tense he was, his hands flexing at nothing on his pillow. 

He was deep in the throes of a nightmare, she was sure of it. She did the only thing she could think of; she got up and went to his bed. 

“Ben,” she said quietly, and when he didn’t respond and instead threw his head to the side, she tried again, louder. “Ben, c’mon.” 

Still, nothing. Finally, she put her hand on his head, and tried to will the force to wake him up. It worked, bringing him back to the surface all at once. He was still panicking when he got there. 

He was frantic, breathing deeply, and he reached out to grab at her arm. She didn’t know what he might do, or if he even realized he was awake yet. 

She caught his wrist mid reach, and she tightened her hand in his hair to hold him. 

“You’re awake, you’re alright,” she tried. “You’re right here, it’s ok.” He looked like he was finally putting it all together. He squeezed his eyes shut and tried to slow down his breathing. 

“Rey?”

“Yes?”

“I’m sorry.”

“It’s alright.” She put his hand back on the sheets and released her grip on his hair, her fingers now running through his dark locks where she’d been holding it, his hair soft and smooth. She kept doing it until his breathing was even again. His hair was as nice as she always assumed it was, from all those hours of staring at him. 

He opened his eyes to look at her, “We were fighting.” 

She shrugged, “What’s new?” 

He breathed out a sigh and shook his head. 

“Will you be alright?” she asked. 

“Oh yes,” he said. “Both of us plagued by nightmares now, perfect.”

She frowned, then went back to her bed. 

They were both tired now, from all of this. 

“Get some sleep, while we can,” she told him and then collapsed back into bed. 

\--  
She knew he was there again before she even rolled over. She could just feel it. In one motion, she reached behind her, pulled out her pillow from under her head and swung it at him. 

“Ben,” she said when she heard the pillow hit its mark. 

“Sorry,” he muttered, half asleep, struggling to stand and walk back to his bed. They were both getting sick of this. It had been over a week of this now, and she was getting sick of the nightmares, of waking up to one of them crying or screaming and needing comfort. She was getting sick of one of them having to get out of the other’s bed at all hours of the night… And she was really getting sick of the fact that she noticed the nightmares didn’t come for her on nights when they appeared in each other’s bed. 

There were stuck in this awful, awful cycle that wouldn’t release them. 

\--  
She woke up sobbing, again. He was there in an instant. 

“It’s ok,” he was saying softly, “it’s over, it’s alright.” She took several big breaths, starting to calm down. “What was it?” he asked when she was calmer. 

She shook her head, “I don’t even remember. It was gone when I woke up.” He nodded. 

He put his hand on her knee over the blanket, clearly a show of comfort. “You’re alright now, I promise,” he said, and moved to go back to his bed, surely convinced he was no longer needed, and that she’d want him gone soon enough. But whatever it had been in her dream had shaken her, deeply. 

She gripped his arm before he could move away. “Just…” she said, shaking her head. “Just, stay.” 

There was no other way to interpret her meaning. He knew what she wanted, and he looked unsettled by it, the way he had gone completely still. She understood what he was feeling. It was very different, this. Getting into bed together voluntarily, instead of being flung there by the force, choosing to lie next to someone, it was something they were yet to explore. It felt decidedly more than what this was supposed to be. 

And yet… whatever demons lurked around them (or in them) stayed at bay when they were together, so whatever the risk, whatever it might mean, it had to be worth it. 

He looked at her closely, and then said, “Ok.” She scooted over to one side of the bed so he had space, and he slid into it gingerly. She watched him stare at the ceiling. 

She coughed, “Is it-” 

He looked over at her, “It’s fine. Just go to sleep.” She nodded, and then miraculously, she did. 

\--

He was waiting for her on the edge of his bed when she came in the next night. 

“Hi,” she said. 

“Hi.” He looked at the floor for a moment. “Can we talk… about last night?” 

Rey could feel her heart pick up. She nodded. 

“Was it just last night?” he asked. She swallowed and sat down on the end of her bed, facing him. 

“I, uh, I’m not sure,” she confessed. He didn’t react to that. She sighed, “All I know is that I have nightmares, terrible ones, and when you’re there, they stop.” 

He nodded, “Me too.” 

She looked at her feet. Her voice was barely a whisper, “Then we should, continue.” When she looked at him, he was smiling, the first proper smile he had ever given her. It threw her off so much that she didn’t even know how to respond. “What?” she asked. 

His tight lipped grin stayed in place, “If we do this, you have to know how much more comfortable my bed is.”

She wrinkled her nose, “It is not.” He raised his arm and motioned to his side, inviting her over to his side of her room. She took the bait, and laid down on his bed. 

She hadn’t noticed it when she was waking him up from his dreams or waking up in and quickly exiting his bed, but sitting there now, she felt like she was being swallowed by the mattress. 

“Far too soft,” she declared, and looked over to him waiting for a challenge, waiting to best him and make them go back to her bed, but he was already lying down, using the force to turn off the lights, like they were just going to bed now. 

“Oh, well played,” she conceded. 

“Thank you.”

“The bed is still too soft, I’ll sink,” she declared. 

“Hmm,” he replied, “You’ll get used to it.” And it was only then that Rey realized what had been done, what they were doing, what they were agreeing to do. This was beyond the truce, this was sleeping with the enemy, in the same bed, by choice. 

She stared at his back for a long time that night, and tried to figure out how she could explain this one to herself. Maybe it’s just easier when he’s here, her brain supplied. Shut up, she supplied back. 

But she thought about that for a long time. Nothing in her life had been easy, nothing, and there had certainly never been anyone to help her make anything easier. So if Ben was here, and he was making her life easier, for once, she wanted to let him. 

\--  
A new pattern started to take shape in the days after that. They met, they had a brief argument about which bed they should sleep in, usually won by Rey’s stubbornness, sometimes won by his ability to pull her blankets toward his bed with the force, sometimes decided entirely by the force itself, with one of them turning around to discover that no bed had followed them into this sanctuary they had created for themselves. 

But no matter what, they still both won, because they could sleep now, untainted by nightmares. If they dreamt now, it was about easy, uncomplicated things. Lightsaber techniques, oceans far away. 

In truth, Rey thought she was wrong about this. It turned out that it wasn’t all that different to their arrangement before. It wasn’t like they were cuddling up in their bed every night. They hardly ever even touched. 

There were…alright… sure, there were mornings when she woke up and Ben’s hand was on her waist, or her foot was resting on top of his leg, but they were normal things, involuntary things, nothing that meant anything. 

She didn’t want to think that it meant something that she had been sleeping the best she ever had with him in her bed, so close to her. Deep down, she knew it did, but she didn’t want to think about it just yet.

\-- 

Rey was confused by his absence tonight. Some nights he was later than others, but this was unusual, even for him. And lately, well lately she could swear he’d been dropping his walls earlier. She was sitting in bed wondering if she should start to worry, when he sort of fell into her room all at once. 

Weird. Rey thought, as Ben, who always seemed so in control of his movements looked off balance. 

“Rey!” he said when he looked up and met her eyes. 

“Ben?” she asked cautiously. 

He flopped down into bed beside her, on his stomach, his head turned toward her. “Did you miss me?” he asked with a smile. 

Weirder. Rey thought. 

“Uh,” she started while she finally took in his features. His eyes were glassy, like he was trying to focus his vision on her and couldn’t really manage it. “Ben, are you drunk?” She asked, suddenly putting the pieces together. 

He propped himself up on his elbows, “Me? No.”

Rey allowed herself a laugh, “You are.”

He let his elbows drop, his body falling back down to the sheets, “Ok, I’m drunk.” He closed his eyes and furrowed his brow, “and my head hurts.” 

Rey smiled and bit her lip, “You need to sleep.” 

He rubbed his face on the sheets, “Good thing I’m in bed.” 

She couldn’t resist teasing him, “I thought you didn’t like my bed as much as yours.” 

He turned to her, reopening his eyes, “I was wrong,” he said (if she hadn’t figured it out already him admitting he was wrong would’ve been a tell tale sign of his state), “Your bed is better. Your bed has you in it.” 

“Oh,” Rey replied, her stomach fluttering and her eyes definitely going wide. He didn’t seem to notice. He just picked up her hand and put it into his hair. 

He hummed, “I liked it... when you did this.” She didn’t know what to say so she just ran her fingers through his soft locks. She kept going until she thought he fell asleep, and then she kept going a little after she thought he fell asleep, too, and she may have left her hand in his hair when she finally laid down next to him. 

His voice was unexpected next to her, “I never thought I’d be here,” he said quietly. “I never thought I’d fall asleep like this, next to you.”   
“I didn’t either,” she said quietly. He squinted his eyes tightly. 

“What?” she asked, thinking something was wrong. 

“I’m trying to make sure I remember this,” he admitted, “sometimes I forget things when I drink.”

Rey bit her lip, “I’ll remember for both of us.” That seemed to settle him, and he drifted off to sleep, soundly this time. 

She wasn’t sure what possessed her to do it. She could blame his drunkenness rubbing off on her, or her tiredness, or how soft he was being tonight… but right before she fell asleep, she leaned forward and pressed her lips to his jaw. She was out before she had time to think about what she’d done.


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Take a break from Marriage Story and read! this! fic! 
> 
> This chapter was originally longer that's why it took so long but I've broken it up so expect another update soon. And yes, fic will be completed before TROS
> 
> Also hey look we have a chapter count woot woot

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> chapter picks up right where we left off last time so you may wanna re read??

She woke up and immediately flexed her hand. She sighed in relief. It was blessedly free of his hair and was instead lying on her pillow. Thank the force. She couldn’t imagine the embarrassment of waking up with her hand still tangled in his hair. 

She burrowed deeper into her dark pillow, her half asleep brain luxuriating in its warmth and its softness. 

...when... did her pillow get a heartbeat? 

She picked her head up ever so slightly just to confirm that she was indeed lying where she suspected she was, which was directly on Ben’s chest. Her head on his chest, her hand there, too. 

He breathed in heavily and Rey sent a thousand prayers to anyone that would listen that he wouldn’t wake up. He moved his head and his hair fell across his face, and at the same time his hand shifted and came to rest on her hip. But, thank the force, he didn’t wake up. 

She stayed there, staring at his chest and his chin alternately, trying to decide what to do and if this was ok… on a lot of levels. She didn’t acknowledge that she was also really enjoying her current position on his chest, being tucked into him the way she was. 

But then he did wake up. Not fully, but enough that he cracked one eye open and noted that she was there, damn near on top of him, not making any sudden move to get away. 

He sighed drowsily, and slid his hand up and down her side gently. “Go back to sleep,” he whispered, and closed his eyes. 

Rey gingerly put her head back down on his chest. He was so, so warm, and his body was so comfortable. She didn’t fight him on it for once. She didn’t try to talk herself out of it. She didn’t want to stop sleeping with him like this. She didn’t want them to fight and go through a whole drama again before they just fell into sleeping like this anyway. No, she just wanted to sleep with him, be held by him. So that’s what she did. 

When she woke up from their second rest, they were in the same position. He was awake this time, his hand tracing her shoulders. 

“Hi,” she said. 

“Hi.”

“How, uh, are you?”

“I feel awful, actually,” he confessed. 

“Oh,” Rey moved to sit up. “I’m sorry, if I-”

He was quick to calm her, “No, no, I feel awful from the alcohol, not.. Not from sleeping, uh, like that.” 

“Oh.” She had almost completely forgotten about him coming to bed drunk last night. 

“But along that line,” he said, “I did sleep very well last night.”

Rey nodded. 

“And I don’t think it was the alcohol,” he said, finally meeting her eyes. 

Rey knew she was blushing. “I did, too.” 

He looked at his hands. “I always sleep better when I’m with you, Rey.” He paused. “I never slept well, and now…” he trailed off. Rey nearly felt herself break out into a sweat. 

“People get tired more easily, when they get older,” she offered shyly. 

He shook his head, “No, it’s you. Sleeping like that with you. You’re like a sedative.” 

She locked eyes with him and nodded. Knowing he would understand that she felt the same. 

He looked away again. “If you don’t want me to touch you when we sleep, I won’t, but-”

“No,” Rey cut him off. “No, I mean, yes. You can, hold me, er, if you want. I also…” felt safe, felt warm, like your body on mine, am thinking about how broad your chest is at this very moment, her brain supplied, “slept well.” 

He nodded, then, “Oh, about that. I’ve been awake for a while, but you’ve slept past midday.” 

Rey froze. She’d never slept past midday. 

“What?” she was incredulous, and was already on her feet looking for her boots. She didn’t know what she was going to tell Finn, or Rose, and she had no idea what she’d missed in the interim. 

He spoke from behind her, standing up from the bed, “Right, so I’ll just be going.” 

She couldn’t even bother, “Yes goodbye Ben.” She ran past him and threw the bond closed in the same moment she slid out the door. 

\---

There was a knock on her door, and then Rose came in crying. Rey didn’t know much about friends, and she was especially new at having friends who were female, but she tried her best to help. She started by asking what was wrong. (Rose sometimes saw the way that Poe looked at Finn). And then by telling her that everything was ok. (Which it was, Poe and Finn run deep and even if one or both of them was interested in the other at one point, Finn was fully committed to Rose now.) And then finished by asking Rose what she needed. (Rose said that she didn’t want to be alone and that was a feeling Rey knew all too well, so she told Rose to stay the night.) 

Truthfully, in her effort to help Rose, she didn’t even think about what would happen when Ben appeared. 

Until, of course, there was suddenly a very loud voice yelling, “What the kriff!” and a heavy weight rolling on to her and knocking them both off the bed and onto the floor. 

Ben landed fully on top of her and was staring at her, looking completely freaked out. “Rey,” his voice was booming. “What. Is. Going. On.” 

“Will you shush?” Rey whisper shouted back at him. 

“She can’t hear me!” 

“No, but I can,” she responded and pushed on his shoulder to get him off of her. She was going to have a bruise in the morning. 

Rey stood up and looked down at Rose, who was sleeping as though nothing had been disturbed. Ben stood up, too. 

“Who is this?” he asked, pointing at Rose. 

“It’s Rose,” Rey said. 

Ben blinked, “And why is she in your bed? This is your bed, right?” 

“Yes, it’s my bed. She had a fight with Finn, I told her to stay here tonight.” 

His jaw was working, “Finn. Finn? The traitor? Finn?”

Rey narrowed her eyes, “Finn, my friend, who has saved my life more than once. Finn.”   
“Fine,” he said. “Finn and… Rose. They’re together?” Rey nodded. “And she’s your friend. And she got upset so she’s staying with you in your room. Ok.” He sat down on her bed and ran a hand through his hair. 

“What is it?” Rey asked. 

“Nothing.”

“No, what’s wrong?” Rey asked, her concern rising. 

“It’s nothing, Rey,” he said and looked down at his pant leg. 

Rey looked at him quizzically, his leg bouncing, his shock still written on his face, and then she burst out laughing.

His hand clamped over her mouth quickly, “She’ll hear you.” He warned, but she couldn’t stop. She laughed into his hand as tears welled in her eyes. 

“What is so funny?” he nearly growled out. She tugged on his hand and pulled him over to his bed, which had appeared (somehow), and put her face on his pillow to muffle her laughs. 

She finally spoke, “Did you think,” she laughed again, “did you think the force was just going to drop you in any bed in the base now? With anyone?” She was laughing at him just appearing in Finn’s bed now, or Poe’s. What he would do if it happened. 

She looked over at him, lying on his elbows next to her. He was smiling at her laughing now. Laugh. She thought. I want to hear you laugh. 

She rolled into his body. He gently put his arms around her. They’d been doing this every night now. Settling into bed together, wrapped up, intertwined. 

“If you want to try other beds, Ben, you can,” she said, suppressing a laugh. 

He coughed out one note of a laugh, which felt like a victory to Rey. He tightened his arms around her, shifting her closer to him. 

“If I did that,” he said, looking into her eyes, “you wouldn’t miss me?” She swallowed. “Who would hold you at night? Hmm?” 

He looked pleased when he said it, and she couldn’t let him win in his smugness that they were so codependent now. That she knew his body better with each night. 

She put her thumb on his chin, he got just ever so slightly more tense, “I’d sleep with a porg,” she said. 

“That can be arranged.” 

She laughed again, nuzzling into his chest. Realization was creeping in on her, that this had become her favorite part of the day. That he had become her favorite part of the day.  
\--

She started to be able to tell what kind of day he’d had based on how drowsy he was when he came to her, or worse, how keyed up, how unable to sleep from adrenaline he could get. Those nights always proved interesting. 

Some nights he was so drowsy that he was only able to hold onto just enough energy to roll into her and wrap her in his arms in any way he could. One night he didn’t even open his eyes, he just sighed her name when he appeared next to her and curled towards her. He ended up on top of her, nearly crushing her. She just stroked his back in response. 

But her favorite, her favorite nights were when he arrived and he was on that plane just before sleep but past awake, when it seemed like he was slipping under but fighting it, when he was lucid and able to talk. He was softer like that, in that state. And she felt like she could ask him anything. 

She started small, asking inconsequential things about him, about the force, about the galaxy, but they always meant so much to her. Those answers about trivial things.

“What’s your favorite planet in the whole galaxy?” she asked him one night. 

His eyes were barely open, “My mother took me back to Naboo when I was a child.” And then, just as he was starting to slip under, “I’m a prince there, you know.” 

Rey blinked several times. 

She spent the next several hours not sleeping but hugging her knees to her chest and staring at him, trying to imagine a circlet crown sitting in his dark hair. Her chest felt tight when she thought about it. She thought about him, a prince on a peaceful planet, untouched by all of this. It made her smile, because she knew that prince or not he would probably still wear all black, and brood, and people would whisper about his temper. 

She felt like they were treasures, the answers she got from him, nothing too scandalous, just little trinkets of knowledge about him. He was a prince in another life, he liked the color blue, he once dreamt he had a vulptex as a pet, when he got headaches his left ear rang because someone fired a blaster next to it when he was young. 

But as most things did with the two of them, it escalated. One night he appeared to her, and she was just as drowsy as he was. She was just about to fall asleep, which was taking her inhibitions away entirely, which is why she had the boldness to ask, “Have you ever kissed anyone?” 

He was quiet, and she couldn’t tell if he had fallen asleep. Finally, he said, “Yes. When I was young, there was a girl.” For some reason, that made Rey smile above all else. She was painting a new life for him. A brooding little prince on Naboo, with a porg as a pet and the first girl he kissed.

“What about you?” he said suddenly. 

“What?” Rey said as she was broken out of her vision. 

“Have you ever kissed anyone?” he asked. Rey was starting to worry that maybe he wasn’t as almost asleep as he let on. 

Rey looked at the ceiling, “I… I kissed Poe…” 

Rey could feel emotions starting to churn on his end, along with his arm moving to prop himself up to look at her. 

“You-” he started, and Rey made the decision so fast, it was almost like a reflex. She waved her hand and Ben was instantly asleep. In fairness, she did feel guilty most of the night, and wondered if she had broken their truce somehow. She knew she should apologize for it in the morning, but when she woke up he was gone. 

When he arrived the next night, he was anything but drowsy. He was sitting upright on the edge of her bed with his back to her. 

“Hi,” she tried when he didn’t turn around. Nothing. He felt like he was a million miles away. She walked around the bed to face him. 

“Ben,” she said again. He finally looked up. His leg was bouncing anxiously, and he still had his boots and regular pants on. His shirt had changed into his black sleep top, but it looked like he had gotten half ready for bed and then gotten completely derailed. “Hi,” she said again with a little more emphasis. 

“Hi,” he said. 

“Are you alright?” 

“Yes, I just-” Rey sat down next to him cautiously. “Did you tell me something last night before I fell asleep?”

Tell him the truth and apologize. “No,” she said quickly, and then internally cursed herself. 

“Are you sure?” he asked. “I remember talking and then… did you knock me out?!” Rey bit her lip. 

“You did!” he stood up, quickly. “You knocked me out. I asked you about… you… did,” he was stammering, clearly his memories were coming back. “Did you tell me that you kissed Dameron?” 

“No! I mean, yes, but it wasn’t- it wasn’t a big-” 

“When?!” 

“A while ago,” she lied through her teeth and hoped he wouldn’t notice. 

“It couldn’t have been,” he responded. Damn his brain. He pointed a finger at himself. “You’ve known me longer than him.” 

“Well I-”

“So when was it?”

Rey stared up at him a moment longer and then finally relented. “It was a month after Crait. It was his birthday, we were trying to find something good to celebrate.” 

Ben stood stock still. “A month after Crait?” 

Rey didn’t want to keep having this conversation. “Ben, please, can we just go to bed?” But he wouldn’t stop. 

“A month after Crait,” He paused. “Were we speaking by then? Had we agreed to the truce? You slept in the same room as me at night and then went off to kiss Dameron?” 

“What does that have to do with anything?” she asked. 

“Were you trying to make me jealous? The bond could’ve opened unexpectedly. Did you think I’d find out?”

Just like when they fought, Rey saw her opening in his defenses. “Would it have worked?” she asked, schooling her voice into calm.

“What?” 

“Would it have worked? Would you have been jealous if you saw me kiss Poe?” 

“No, no, why would I be jealous of that?” 

Rey shrugged her shoulders. “I don’t know. It seemed like you were getting pretty jealous.” 

Then they both looked at each other in silence. 

“Ok,” Ben said, running a hand through his hair. “Truce. This is supposed to be our truce. I call a truce. I don’t want to fight.” He sat down to remove his boots. 

“Fine,” Rey said. She moved back around to her side of the bed and started to settle in. “Let’s just go to sleep then. I’m exhausted. I was training with Poe all day.” 

There was a noise like Ben had ripped the leather of his boots, and that was, indeed, what had happened. 

“You did that on purpose,” he said quietly. 

“No I didn’t,” Rey argued, and she hadn’t, but she regretted it now. “I’m sorry, can we just go to bed now?” she tried again. 

He nodded and laid down next to her, looking at the ceiling. Rey laid flat on her back, too, trying to decide if she was mad or not. She shouldn’t have told him about Poe. She shouldn’t have kissed Poe, either. She had been drinking something Rose had stored for a “special occasion” and Poe had been next to her and…

She was just trying to piece together whether any of her actions were related to Ben when he spoke. 

“Rey?” There was something in the tone of his voice that she didn’t recognize. 

“Yeah?”

He rolled over to face her and propped himself up on his elbow. She assumed he was going to pull her to him so that they could sleep, but he didn't Instead, he leaned down and kissed her. 

It happened so fast that Rey didn’t have time to process it until he was pulling his lips away from hers. 

He just hovered above her for a moment, staring into her eyes, and then Rey reached her mouth up to his. She moved to sit up, until they were sitting knee to knee on the bed, their lips still connected. Still timid. Waiting for the other one to advance. 

But then it was simultaneous, the way their mouths slid open and over each other’s. 

They sat there, learning the insides of each other’s mouths for what could have been minutes or could have been hours. Rey wasn’t sure. She was only sure that Poe had never kissed her like this. He hadn’t made her feel this way, like the only thing that mattered was keeping their mouths together, that when Ben started to gently push her back down onto the bed, she put her hand on the back of his head to tug him down with her, because if her mouth came off of his for a minute she was sure she would lose it. She wanted to stay like this forever, just kissing him. 

He kissed like he fought, Rey discovered. It was all passion and drive, his tongue on hers, his teeth on her bottom lip, his hands tracing down to her hips. His focus was narrowed down to her, and she tried her best to reciprocate. She put her hands in his hair, somehow managing to pull him closer to her. He hummed appreciatively, and moved his lips to her neck. 

“Ben” she said, but it came out as a moan. 

He opened his mouth, let his teeth scrape down her neck. Then he pulled back to look at her. 

Stars, Rey thought. He was so blessedly attractive above her. His hair was everywhere and his lips were proof that she’d succeeded in kissing him thoroughly and his eyes were so… hungry. She thought with an almost chuckle that she had been wrong all the times before that she’d called him a monster. Because she’d said he was a monster then, but he’d never looked more ready to devour her than right now. 

“I want you,” he said, hand on her chin. Like it had some sort of cosmic significance. Then his mouth crashed back down on hers, and she welcomed it happily, feeling much in the same state he was in. They went back to kissing with an increased urgency, like they were building toward something now. 

He put his hands on her hips, and he moved to slide his hands up into her shirt. 

And Rey felt the leather of his gloves on her stomach, not his hands, and everything came crashing down. She remembered who she was with, who was touching her, who was making her feel this way, and she panicked. How far she’d let herself fall. 

She pushed him off of her, “Ben, stop.” He looked confused. Then a look of realization crossed his face, too.

“You don’t want this?” he asked somberly. Rey just bit her lip. She was panicking internally.

“You don’t want me?” he tried again, frustration creeping into his voice. 

She was at a loss, “No, no I-” 

“Then what?” he spat. 

“I think we just got out of hand,” she tried. And in fact, maybe this whole thing had gotten out of hand. Their comfort level, the fact that she slept wrapped around him every night. She shouldn’t be doing any of this, they shouldn’t be doing any of this. He was still her enemy and he… he wasn’t even really here. He was halfway across the galaxy and everything felt wrong and too tight in her chest. 

And now… 

Now she was panicking. Because she was still worried about him, despite all of that. She could see the anger creeping into his features, the rejection, the pain, and she knew that no matter what she said now, even if she told him she’d very much like to go back to kissing thank you very much, that it would be wrong, and he would still be mad. There was no way out of this. 

She hung her head in defeat, “I’m sorry.” 

He was quiet, completely still for a moment, and then he rolled onto his side, facing away from her, pulled the blankets up to his chin, and only offered her, “Goodnight then.” 

“Ben-” 

“I said goodnight, Rey,” and that was his final word. 

She laid down and stared at her back, feeling like they just ruined everything. Feeling like she hadn’t even had time to process that she’d just been kissed out of her mind 5 minutes ago, and now she had to process that he was deeply hurt and wouldn’t even look at her. 

The only thing left that gave her hope was the fact that even after all that, he didn’t get out of their bed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Calm down, they're gonna fuck


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Heyyyy ah haha, remember this fic?? Me too. This chapter can be summarized by me directly addressing the note I left at the bottom of the last chapter... in November.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi so here's why the delay. First it was finals, then it was TROS, then it was then it was lack on Inspo, then it was corona virus induced depression. So here we are. I'm actually very really sorry. But here's the update, hope you enjoy *wink* 
> 
> Please shame me in the comments for not updating since November cool thanks!!!

They didn’t even touch each other for the next few nights. He simply arrived in her bed, turned away from her, and went to sleep. 

That first night, Rey had been prepared to not sleep at all. To feel like a child again on Jakku, waiting for parents who weren’t coming. But instead, other than a brief moment where she was cold without his added heat, she went to sleep easily. That was the last reaction she was expecting to have. 

The same thing happened on night two, which was, again, confusing. She was beyond crushed that he wouldn’t talk to her and hold her, and yet she fell asleep easily as soon as he arrived. 

On the third night, she was still awake after he arrived, but only because she was trying to work out whatever was going on. 

She was staring at the wall, listening to the quiet sounds of his breathing when it hit her all at once. 

Maybe if he had left, she would’ve cried herself hoarse and not slept for days. Maybe if he had left her alone in her bed, she would’ve thought he was just like her parents, just like everyone, always leaving her. But he didn’t. He had stayed next to her. Even though they were fighting, even though she had been the one to push him away, he had stayed. That was worth more than anything to her. 

She did cry then, but not out of anguish. She was crying because… because, well, he had told her the one thing she’d always been waiting to hear, hadn’t he? Maybe not in words, but he’d shown her that he thought she was worth staying for. And deep down, she knew it was what he felt. 

She resolved that in the morning she was going to tell him how she felt, how much this meant to her, how much all of it did. She drifted off to sleep with tears still in her eyes, so distracted by her churned up emotions that she didn’t even notice him curling toward her in his sleep, wrapping his body around her back, didn’t notice his arms around her waist like he was just responding to some instinct within himself to comfort her. She didn’t notice it, she just fell asleep feeling an emotion she knew was there, but couldn’t quite yet grasp. 

\--

On that morning of the fourth day, Rey woke up warm. She was, in fact, blissfully warm, which should have been the first sign that there was something considerably better about today. Because Rey was never warm, hadn’t been since she left Jakku. 

The next clue should’ve been the warm breath on her neck. Or maybe the weight wrapped around her shoulders. 

Maybe if she hadn’t been so comfortable, so blissfully warm, she would’ve woken up and done something about this, but instead, she remained blissfully half awake, assuming she was still having a very pleasant dream about a certain someone finally snuggled up as closely as she wanted him to be. 

He was pressed up behind her, holding her back close to his chest. 

When he shifted his hips into her, she hummed happily in her still sleepy state. 

When he shifted his hips into her again, clearly hard against her ass, and his hand slid under her shirt to rest on her bare stomach, then she actually woke up. 

“Ben?” She asked, a little confused, but a lot in favor of letting him continue. He didn’t respond. Didn’t even move. 

Rey rolled over to find his eyes shut, breathing softly. Oh. He was asleep. 

She tried again, lacing her fingers through his hair and bringing her face close to his. “Ben,” she called softly. 

He opened his eyes slowly, with the warmest look in them and smiled… his first true smile he’d ever given her. 

“Rey,” he said her name so reverently, and leaned in to kiss her. Rey’s heart felt like it had done a somersault in her chest as she returned the kiss in kind, licking into his mouth. His hands resumed moving under her shirt, sliding up toward her chest and - and then it was like everything stopped. 

He pulled away from her mouth and her body so fast she barely had time to react. He looked like he’d seen a ghost. 

“Why didn’t you wake me up?” he asked, a hint of anger, maybe even fear seeping into his voice. 

“I just did?” she replied. 

“Before that,” he snapped. He sat up and ran his fingers back through his hair then sat back. 

“I’m sorry.” At least he sounded much calmer. “I didn’t know what I was doing, I was having a dream, and then…” 

Rey urged him on, “and then…?”

He let out a breath, “and then I wake up and you’re looking at me the way you do... in my dreams… sometimes, and I just… I just didn’t realize it, ok?” 

Rey was still trying to process that he was dreaming about her when he kept talking. “Look, I shouldn’t have done that, and I shouldn’t have touched you like that and I’m sorry. I can go if you want that.” 

She put her hands on his arms, trying to still him. 

“Ben, I’ve been waiting for you to touch me again for 3 days and now you’re apologizing?” 

He was silent, staring at her, “But I- but we - I thought you said we went over the line last time and-” 

“And I was wrong,” she corrected him and took a breath. “This is what I want. You are what I want.” 

He narrowed his eyes at her, leaned into her, like he was checking her for the truth, “This is what you want?” 

“This is what I want.” 

“Are you sure?” he asked, dipping his head to her neck, placing a single kiss to it. 

She swallowed, hoping he didn’t notice. “Yes.” 

He kissed her again, “because the last time I got this far, we ended up in a three day stand off.” 

She rolled her neck to the side, giving him more room to operate. “We’ve done worse to each other,” she said, her voice coming out breathless. 

He looked back up into her eyes. “Probably true.” And then he slotted his mouth over hers. Stars, his mouth, and how perfectly it seemed to fit hers. 

He pulled away again, looked into her eyes, “But I think you better tell me exactly what it is you want this time, Rey.” 

She rolled her eyes, “I think you can guess.” 

He nudged her nose with his own, “I’m a terrible guesser.” 

She pushed him away from her and pulled her shirt off over her head, leaving her in just her breast band. Before the blush he was sporting could overtake his whole face, she pushed him down onto the pillows, kissed him hard. “I want you to show me what you would’ve done if I hadn’t stopped you before,” she breathed out. 

And then went back to kissing him, as he rolled them over, pulled his own shirt off, let his hands roam her body freely. 

He pulled his mouth away, “I would’ve done a whole lot.”

“Then do a whole lot,” she responded calmly. 

His eyes got three shades darker. “Tell me if you want me to stop.”

She held his chin so that he’d look her in the eye. “I asked you to stop before because I was afraid of what it meant to do that with you. But I know who you are, I’ve known all along, and Ben,” she said, running a hand down his chest, “I don’t want you to stop.”

He kissed her, and it started so tenderly, but she didn’t stop him when it turned filthy. She didn’t stop him when he unwound her breast band, didn’t stop him when he kissed both her breasts, didn’t stop when he put his mouth all over her torso. She didn’t stop him when he ever so gently pulled her pants down her legs. She didn’t even stop him when he reached to unfasten his. 

He stopped, though, and looked up into her eyes, his hair falling over his brow. 

“Have you ever-” he started. 

“No,” she shook her head. He didn’t say anything.

“Have, um, have you ever-” she half asked. 

“No,” he said shortly. “But like I said, I want to do everything with you.” 

In response, she moved to pull his mouth back up to hers, but he denied her with a gentle shake of his head. Instead, he moved down, in the opposite direction of her mouth (much to her annoyance). 

He kissed down her breasts and across her stomach… and he kept going. 

“Ben,” was all she could say as she watched him settle in between her legs. 

The next time she said his name it was far breathier, and over the next several minutes, she said his name every way you could imagine as his tongue found her again and again, hitting spots she didn’t even know were there. 

The final time she said his name she all but yelled it as she fell apart in front of him. She pulled him back up to her by the hair. 

He looked thoroughly pleased with himself. “So many nights that I was lying in bed next to you, I was trying to think of ways to convince you to let me do that.” 

Rey laughed, “If i had known you could do that we would’ve been doing it a lot sooner.” 

And then, like a miracle, he laughed. Ben Solo eating her out and then laughing… she could imagine far worse mornings for herself. 

“Rey,” was he said after he settled down. He buried his face in her neck, busying himself with sucking a bruise into her skin, when she heard him nearly whisper, “I really want to fuck you.”

“Then do it,” she replied quietly. 

“You seem nervous.” 

“I’m not,” she said, and it was true, mostly. She wasn’t nervous about the actual act, she was more nervous about them, that this was just another thing, tangling them together even more tightly, that they were never going to be able to let each other go. 

At the first press of him inside her, she knew she was right.

“Rey?” he asked when he was fully inside her. 

“Yeah?” she said, completely breathless. 

“Can I move?” He asked. She nodded. It was about all she was still capable of. 

It wasn’t supposed to feel this good, was it? Because what he was doing to her… it was criminal. He pressed his face to her chest, kissing and sometimes licking the skin there as he moved in her. 

“Fuck, you’re perfect,” he ground out. “I knew you were.”

She took a deep breath and pulled him back up to her mouth. He kissed her over and over again. Wet, sloppy kisses. She was starting to realize she kind of had a kink for when he was a little unhinged, when he couldn’t really control himself around her, when he was just acting on some instinct within himself. 

He thrust into her particularly hard and she pulled away from his mouth, gasping. 

“Am I crushing you?” he breathed out. 

“No,” she said seriously. “No, I like it. I’ve always liked how big you are.”

“Oh, yeah?” he said, starting to pick up his pace. 

“Especially right now-” she said and was cut off quickly as he came. 

When his breathing finally stilled, he rolled over and pulled out of her. They both laid there, staring up at the ceiling. 

Finally, he spoke, and there was something like wonder in his voice “Rey?” was all he said. 

“Ben?” she said rolling on her side toward him. 

“I need you to know,” he said, running a fingertip down her side, tracing her curves. “I’m not going to be able to let you go.”

She leaned into him, not feeling any of the trepidation of before, and kissed his mouth lightly. “You don’t have to.”

\--

She wanted to feel this kind of bliss for the rest of her life. She was walking around the Resistance Base on air. 

And then of course. It was cut short. The decision came down from the general. They were moving a small squadron closer to the First Order’s position to monitor them. They were to leave immediately.

Rey’s general panic was already rising, but the fact that she didn’t even have time to reach out to Ben, to tell him that they were moving and she wouldn’t be in her own bed tonight, she wouldn’t be able to kiss him again until… well, she didn’t know when. 

An hour later, they were in flight, only taking the falcon and a small cruiser, and two hours later they had crossed two systems and were only a parsec away from the First Order’s stronghold star destroyer.

The instant she found a moment to slip away, she found a quiet place on the cruiser and opened the bond. She knew it was an unconventional time to reach out to him, but they had taken to responding to the other as soon as the walls were down. She assumed he’d respond.

And yet… nothing. There was no response from his end.

She reached out and gave the bond a tug, hoping to grab his attention. Still, nothing.

Was he… was something wrong? With them? Had something about last night upset him, or?

The knock on her door tore her thoughts away from Ben. She opened it to find Leia looking… very much not like Leia. Her eyes were wide and her face was white as a sheet. 

“Leia?” Rey asked cautiously. Leia simply let herself into Rey’s room and sat down on her bed. 

“Rey, something’s wrong,” she said, and there was fear, genuine fear, coating her voice. 

“With the monitors?” She asked. “With the resistance?” 

Leia shook her head and looked up at Rey, “No, something’s wrong with Ben.” 

Rey blinked. “H-how-”

“I can sense it, I know you can, too, don’t even try.”

Rey tried to pass off her embarrassment, “I can’t sense anything from him.”

“Exactly.”

“That doesn’t necessarily mean anything’s wrong, though.”

Leia shot her a look, “Rey, at his calmest, Ben’s force signature still feels like a star exploding.”

Rey swallowed. “I’ve been… trying to contact him and there’s just nothing on his end. I don’t know what else to do.”

Leia sighed, “Try one more time. Try to get anything from him, even if it’s just his location.” Leia closed her eyes, “And get Finn, Rose, and Poe on the falcon, be ready to go get him, Rey.”

Rey was shocked, “Leia?”

Leia waved her hand, “Something is wrong, and my son isn’t dying while I’m around to prevent it.”

Rey nodded as Leia left the room. Then she tried, one more time to reach out to him with everything she had, even if it was just to pick up his presence.

The bond opened this time, thank the stars. But it was different, faint, like he had opened the bond by accident rather than by choice. He didn’t even notice her when she appeared, he was just sitting on his bed, looking away. At least he was alone, thank the stars.

“Ben?” she called to him from across his room.

He turned around when he heard his name. “Rey?” 

“What’s going on?” She asked. “I haven’t been able to sense you.” 

“I-” he looked down at his hands. “I haven’t been able to use the force much today, I’m not sure.” 

That, Rey thought, both in tone and wording, is the most unlike you sentence that you’ve ever said. 

She walked over and sat down on his bed. “Ben? Where on your ship are-” She started to ask and then paused when she saw his eyes struggling to stay focused. Every alarm bell in her head was ringing. This was different than when he was drunk, different than when he was tired. He looked completely out of it. Dulled, everything about him. 

“Ben,” she said sternly now. “What is going on?” 

“Ohhhh,” he said snapping his fingers. “Hux, he poisoned my food this morning.” Rey felt her eyes get wide. 

“Ben…” she started, and the connection snapped shut.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> a cliff hanger that it won't take 3 months to resolve I promise.


End file.
